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Story:Kings of Strife/Part 28
Part Twenty-Eight The more time passed after he accepted the mission from Draizen, the less control over himself that Luther had. After all these years, he thought he had let go of the lingering regret that had plagued him for so long after Silverius left the military. The marriage he had before the Nneonian Civil War broke apart within months after the operation that saved his life, and the two daughters he had were disgusted by what the doctors had done to keep him alive. Just by not dying, he had alienated his greatest pupil and his closest family. The months after that were hard for him. For his service in the War and as a sort of compensation for Silverius’ rogue behavior, the Inusian government had gifted him an early retirement and a fat paycheck to stay out of any bureaucratic career. They wouldn’t want him spreading the word about what really happened in Nneoh, after all. It’d be bad for morale, they said. Of course it would. He wasn’t the only war veteran who’d been gracefully fired this way, nor was he the only one who survived with grievous wounds and a new outlook on life. But he was completely sure that he was the only one who had lived at such costs – with such a broken heart – and to this date he went uncontested by this belief. Luther Vinahkman was, for all intents and purposes, a changed man. The monotonous days blurred into weeks, which soon became months and years. The time and date long ago ceased to matter to him. There was never any purpose in keeping track of what time it was, or what he would do for the rest of the day, nor even how long it had been since he had shaved. He did what he wanted whenever the impulse to do so came to him. Who was going to stop him anymore? What was going to hold him down to the ideals of a proper life in which he was useful to society? Although he thought the opposite, truly the government’s relinquishment of his job had freed him, and with the amount of money they paid him, living comfortably was easy. He was free, and life was his own to experience, and there was no living person in the world who could say otherwise. But that was never what Luther Vinahkman wanted. It didn’t take long for him to realize just how tired he was. Every movement came with it a slow withdrawal of breath and a sigh. Every morning and night he spent watching sunrise and sunset came accompanied by a feeling of melancholy loneliness. Any news headline he read elected a shake of the head and a tsk from his teeth at the foolishness of the new generation. Waking up in the morning, long ago a sensation that filled him with excitement and anticipation, now only instilled in him a feeling of weakness and shame that he had not died in his sleep. Walking around the cities he wandered near gave him no entertainment at all. Even the alcohol he indulged in constantly did nothing to ease the dull pain he felt in every muscle, every morning and every evening. He even began to tire of drinking after a while, but he couldn’t stop. Not now. Addiction, especially when introduced in the throes of sorrow and rejection, was a powerful thing. Rejection. That was what honestly plagued him, and he knew it. The Inusian military rejected any sovereignty its hunting dogs requested and ordered them to partake in a brutal civil war, and executed any who defied them. The very country the Inusians fought for rejected them for the deeds they had no choice in committing. Silverius, his pupil and closest friend, rejected him at the peak of the effort he was making to reach out to the youth. His family rejected him when he survived Silverius’ misplaced anger and the terrible civil war. The government that used him for their dirty work rejected him when all he did was what they asked of him. And now the world rejected him as just some cybernetic war veteran alcoholic junkie with nothing to his name and nothing to amount to. Before long, he began to reject himself. Luther Vinahkman hated himself, and everything besides him, and the world itself. He wanted to die, so very badly, and he also wanted to kill everything that had ever rejected him. That was what he lived for all this time, and so strong were his beliefs that he couldn’t bear to kill himself until they were fulfilled, even if it contradicted his deepest desires. However, after a while, he realized just how foolish he was being, and how he was lying only to himself. The truth was that he was too afraid to kill himself, and after what he had been through in the trenches of Nneoh, he couldn’t bring himself to kill anyone ever again. Still, the feelings never extinguished within him. The only thing that built up beneath Luther Vinahkman was sadness, rejection, and hatred. The hatred constantly grew, like a weed in his mind’s garden, making him resent everything and himself for not having the power or the gumption to just end it all himself. The only thing the alcohol did was give him liver problems and a bit of a bloat to his large muscles. He began to doubt that anything could make these feelings go away. Eight long years he lived like this, dreading every morning he awoke and trying to waste his life away by drinking and smoking. He used to travel constantly, and that served as a good way to kill time, but he stopped after he had an epiphany that he didn’t enjoy anything anymore, especially not seeing people who were enjoying themselves. Time meant nothing to him, and he knew it never would. After years of struggling under duty, mental stress, and the expectations of others, Luther was somewhat amazed to admit that his fall from glory was liberating, somewhat. Before, when he worried about time and its limitedness, he would stress and plan but it would all be for naught. But now, after holding onto the weight for so long on his shoulders, knees buckling and threatening to collapse, he was finally able to let go of the weight and fall to his knees. Sure, the effort had only managed to make his life a living hell one step away from death, and had completely damaged his mental state, but at least he wasn’t holding onto the weight anymore. He had let go of the life vest, and was ever so slowly drowning in an ocean of despair. After holding his breath for so long, he let all of the oxygen go with a sad smile, and was now only waiting to see how long it would take for the water to fill his lungs and drag him to his grave. Silverius had changed everything, once again. Luther wanted to refuse Draizen’s request with every bone in his body. He could tell, as soon as he felt the man’s presence enter that bar, that whatever he would bring up would only drag him back out of his abyss. It would give him a new purpose in life, and would probably lead to him becoming a dog for the Inusians once again, doing what they found unsightly – yet necessary – and being thrown away in the end for his work. It was a hell, living like that and accepting the inevitable rejection, and it was a hell worse than the one he was in now. But when he heard Silverius – had gotten confirmation that the boy was still alive and roaming – his heart hurt and sorely pounded with a new frenzy. What had been shackled in despair and uselessness was revived with a nostalgic sorrow, a thought of what once was and what could be. He wanted to see the boy again, to tell him to cut his hair one last time, to slap him around and hug him and cry and wonder about what could have possibly scarred him so. Luther wanted to see his son again, not the real one that had died in childbirth, but the one he had found in the darkest confines of Inusian black ops and had pulled out to see the light of the day and of life. Now the pupil had escaped into the light, and Luther had fell into the darkness, and he knew that he would be helpless to his self-preservation instinct. He wanted, above all, to see Silverius again, and to grab the boy’s hand, and to hope that he pulled his old mentor out of the dark pits of despair like had once been done to him. Luther knew this probably would not happen, especially since he had ostensibly been ordered to kill Silverius and retrieve the extremely valuable Crystal, but a small chance was better than no chance. If anything, he wasn’t even sure that he would be able to kill Silverius. Luther hadn’t raised a blade or gun to anyone in the eight years that had passed since the Civil War, but he would probably be able to go through with a murder if he let go of himself and let his body act on instinct, like he did all those years ago. It hadn’t failed him then and he doubted that the art was forgotten. Killing was something that a man could never forget. But to kill Silverius – the very person he thought of as his son? Was that what God had in store for him after these long years of suffering? Would he have to crush the very dream that had sustained him for so long? He couldn’t tell, and he wouldn’t know. Just as he did all those years ago, Luther let his mind fall silent, and stopped thinking about the atrocities that he was about to commit, and let his body run on auto-pilot. If it were any other way, there would have been no way he would have lived with himself for eight years like he did. He would have surely remembered all the people he killed, heard their screams whenever there was silence, and seen their corpses whenever he closed their eyes. That was something Silverius had never learned to accomplish. The boy always acted out of intelligent instinct, close to animal motor skills but not far enough that he was detached from what he did. Luther always regretted that he had never stamped that out of the youth. Sleep was something Silverius had never been able to take back from the dark abyss of his subconscious. ***** “What’s your name, son?” “M…” The blond boy gulped and let his chin drop slightly. His drill sergeant slapped him on the face and pushed his chin up higher. “Speak already, dammit!” “Moritaka Posmos, sir!” He had come up with the name on the spot, but still, the uniformed man in front of him, stubble and all, nodded with a scowl and continued moving down the line. The now-named Moritaka had never thought of naming himself, but he had to admit that it had a certain ring to it. His cheek stung from the slap, but it didn’t matter to him. Not now, when he was finally walking down the only path left for him. The only city he had ever known lay in ruins all around him. He called it home (had he really?) for all of his life, and now it was completely destroyed. Moritaka would never forget what he felt as he had woken up, body aching and mind hazy. He had looked around him in confusion and saw only unknowns. Everything was unfamiliar, a beautifully painted piece of that which was never to be seen by his eyes. He remembered nothing, was familiar with nothing, and could sympathize with nothing. Not even himself. He had woken up near the wall of pure black stone, put up in an unnatural defiance of the city he loved (how long ago did he learn to love it?). He didn’t remember anyone’s names, nor what anyone he ever knew looked like. There was no home he had to go back to, and if there even was one in the first place (how was he to know that it did?), it was almost certainly destroyed by the riots. Those riots that he had never even known about. It didn’t take long for the panic to set in. He was alone, with nowhere to run to, and surrounded by people who apparently had no qualms in destroying an entire city and its people. Death no doubt awaited a straggler like him, and as someone with no ties in the world he found himself in, there was no doubt in his mind that no one would remember him. That was what was so scary, a burning fear that he couldn’t stamp down no matter how hard he tries. The fact that nobody would care at all if he died. Then he met Vik, and his world changed from the three minute encounter. He saw, for the first time, a man who showed a bright light in his eyes, one that shunned the darkness and refused to live in it. For the brief second that the two locked eyes, the nameless boy saw for the first time someone who had a purpose, someone who knew what they needed to do in life, and someone with an ambition. This man wouldn’t let himself be trampled beneath destiny like a pathetic flower – he pushed off from any pathetic terror – he broke free from the harsh life of refugee slavery. Then Vik was gone and the boy was alone again. That didn’t matter. What Vik left behind in the boy – an indomitable spirit, a hatred for fear and inconsequentiality – was unshakable and eternal. He didn’t know of it, but that which was eternal was in the boy’s heart all along, only now reawakened by the power of Vikcent Hyusei’s sheer presence. He would no longer live as nameless cattle, and would never let himself be held beneath the unbreakable fingers of fate. To do that, he knew that he needed a cause. The boy had a sudden amount of willpower and stubbornness, but he still had no power – no ambition to call his own – no cause or people to fight for. He fretted for a while, unsure of where to go and what to do, when he realized that the answer had been with him since he first regained consciousness. The black wall he lay on, and the dark castle that was behind it, and the bright white light of pure ambition that dwelled within it – that was what he needed. It was destiny, fate even. Surely. Moritaka Posmos was beginning to see that he loved the word fate. He applied for a spot in Vainia Sestrum’s army as soon as he could. The application process was short and painless – a simple physical exam from Vainia’s nameless Knight was all he had to endure – and the basic training seemed to be going smoothly as well, besides his slap-happy drill sergeant. Moritaka couldn’t remember any times in his life before waking up after the riots, but the feeling that being in Vainia’s army gave him was one of warm familiarity. He felt that his parents, if they were alive or even if they cared about him, would be proud of the decision he had made. Most of all, he was proud of his new life. It was sweet, divine even, and only filled him with happiness, and for what reason he could not say. He did not know what he planned to do after his 20 year contract in the military, nor why exactly he had felt like Vainia was a perfect fit to his newfound ideals, but nonsensibility seemed to be something he was quite good at. That was fine with him. Perhaps it was fate that had put him in this position. He loved it all the same. ***** He remembered her when he awoke, once again. The dream – he saw it as a nightmare – was one that involved her. They always did, nowadays. He had tried to save her where he had failed in real life, but again he had failed. Then, when they met again, he tried to fight off her jailor, but he failed once again. The wish he held, strong and bright though it was, proved completely worthless. Upon awaking, he had been lost in pain and fear and confusion. Just like every time he awoke from that hell he called his mind. Silverius was drenched with sweat as he sat up, shirtless, in the inn bed. “Dammit,” he muttered as he looked to the half-drunken glass of beer that lay on his room’s nightstand. Drinking only put him to sleep, as it always did. Why did he let that innkeeper convince him to try one of her ‘special drinks’? The dark-haired man rubbed his eyes with a hand and his hair with the other. Was it selfish of him to feel as he did, that the innkeeper was far overstepping her boundaries by holding him here and nursing him back to health? That he didn’t need help from anyone, or even that he didn’t want to be healed? Now, as always, he heard that request in the back of his mind, repeating endlessly and unrelentingly. ‘I want to die.’ He began to move the comforters from around his body when the door to his small room opened. The door had been locked, so Silverius knew who the intruder was, and he turned away from the door without a word. “Ohoh, so you’re actually awake! It takes a strong man to not be out like a lamp after drinking some of my special potion.” “…So you knew what it would do to me, and still…?” Silverius rubbed at his eyes and sighed. His body felt sluggish, out of sync with his mind. It was like he was still that dream of his, falling into a murky pit of water he couldn’t see through. “You bet. It’s not healthy to go so long without sleeping, Crono, and…” “I told you not to call me that.” Silverius’ hands unconsciously curled into fists and he looked down to the ground. “I don’t want anyone calling me that anymore. Not even you. And you know that.” He felt cold hands wrap around his neck and rest on his chest. She was standing close to him, much closer than he would have liked. Although he tensed up and continued to look away, he couldn’t deny how warm her embrace made him feel. “You can’t keep living like this… Silverius.” She seemed hurt to have to refer to him by his last name. “I don’t want to see you so unhappy.” “You don’t know what I’ve been through. The only thing that would make me happy is…” They both knew what he wanted to say, but he hadn’t the nerve to say it now. As abrasive as his words were, he didn’t have the nerve to push Karilyn away from himself, either. ‘That’s what makes me weak,’ he thought. ‘The fact that I can’t make myself as lonely as I want to be.’ “So tell me what you’ve been through!” She removed herself now and forcefully turned him around, and the two made eye contact for the first time in hours. Silverius could clearly see weariness and concern in her hazel eyes. Their shade was the same as the light brown autumn leaves, falling to the ground on a heavy wind. “I’m tired, Silverius. It’s been a long day, and I’ve been working nonstop since the riots… People have been coming in looking like hell. But I have to continue my business. That’s all I have in this world, and if I left it behind, I’d be lost. There’d be nothing for me. I’d be as good as dead. Don’t you see what I mean?” Her gaze softened and she melted into his chest, but still he did not dare to touch her. “We’re different from each other. I thought you knew that already. Ugh, why are you doing this to me?!” Finally he pushed her away and turned back to the window. Outside, the pitch black night sky beckoned, as did the equally black waters that powered all of Shorekeep’s economy. He’d missed seeing the sea outside of his window at night. “You don’t love me, and you never could. I know what type of people you love and I don’t fit the bill. So…” “Everything isn’t about love all the time!” She seemed choked up. “You don’t have to love someone to want them to be happy, dammit! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I care for you, and it’s painful to see you holed up in this dark room by yourself all the time! That’s not what life’s about!” “Maybe I don’t want to live anymore. Did you ever think about that?” Silverius’ tone was suddenly detached and icy, and was enough to send chills down Karilyn’s spine. She drew back slightly with a tiny gasp, and was unable to reply. He swallowed before continuing. “I’ve been through more than you can imagine. These hands of mine… They’ve taken so many lives. And I’m tired, too. I’m tired of it all… So tired…” “So why can’t you sleep? If you’re so tired, what keeps you from resting, or healing, or recovering?” “You still don’t understand. It’s precisely because I’m weary that I can’t rest. That’s not what fate has in store for me. Every time I close my eyes… I see her… and all of the others…” "Everything comes back to that woman you’re obsessed with, doesn’t it?” Silverius whirled in surprise. How did she know about that?! He had never shared anything about Maria – and never planned to. Karilyn was looking out of the window herself now, and her arms were crossed below her generous bosom. “You talk in your sleep, you know. Whoever that Maria is must have done something really terrible to make you cry about her every time you close your eyes.” Silverius looked down with a shiver, and Karilyn stole a glance at the shrinking man. “It’s not healthy, living like this. You’re missing out on your life because of something that happened in the past. Sometimes you have to learn to let go and move on.” “I… I don’t think I can do that. I was never able to…” “There’s a first time for anything.” Karilyn walked close to Silverius, incredibly close, and although she looked right in his eyes with her large pretty ones, he couldn’t bear to make eye contact with her. All that he noticed was her smell, a tinge of sweat and faded perfume, and her voluptuous body crushed into the tight barkeeper robes that she wore. Karilyn Red was beautiful, curvaceous, and had a gorgeous face, to boot. Even more importantly, she was practically throwing herself at him, and it was clear that she held genuine concern for him. In that moment, quickly and stealthily as if it had been there all along, came an urge in Silverius’ body and a need in his soul. That which Maria could never give him was right in front of him – that which he had never gotten from those who were most important was being handed to him. But he couldn’t take it. Not after all he had been through; not after all he had done. Silverius knew he didn’t deserve happiness, and to reach for the impossible would insult everyone he’d done wrong to. Happiness was never something meant for him, and to hope for it only provoked pain and disappointment. Maria had taught him that – or rather, the Chosen Knight had. Karilyn noticed his hesitation and her bright eyes dimmed with disappointment. “Get some sleep,” she muttered as she turned and pulled up her cleavage-revealing top. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She left the room without exchanging any more words, and Silverius himself was silent. As he turned and looked at the sea that he loved to wade in so many years ago, the same pain ran through Silverius’ body, but he was slowly beginning to accept it. He couldn’t know if what she said was right or not, but the fact was that he didn’t know any other way to live. It was too late to change things now. He looked to the front of the room, near his now closed door. In a neat pile lay a replacement set of clothes she had set out for him the first night after he awoke. His gunblade, wallet, and Crystal were no doubt in Karilyn’s room, which was unoccupied when she was working during the day. Thinking of her gave him a pang of guilt in his heart. It was time for him to go and leave this city behind once again, but for her sake… Another night in the inn wouldn’t hurt. ...End of Part Twenty-Eight. <- Previous Page | Main Page | Next Page ->